


Second Helping

by festivalofpudding (berreh)



Category: Pushing Daisies, Rhett & Link
Genre: Awkward Ned, Chuck Tries to Help, F/M, Gen, I can't finish my WIPs but I can write this nonsense, Link Dies But He'll Be OK That's Kind of the Premise, M/M, Pining Rhett, oblivious Link, the most fun i've had writing a crossover since lotrips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berreh/pseuds/festivalofpudding
Summary: On a quiet Sunday morning at The Pie Hole, two lifelong best friends enjoy the day's special, until one of them dies for a little while and the other learns a very special lesson.





	Second Helping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OpeningPandorasBox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpeningPandorasBox/gifts), [RileyRooin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyRooin/gifts).

> So I'm watching Pushing Daisies for the first time this weekend and I was texting with my BFF and then this happened? I haven't done spontaneous fic in a long time, i'm pretty stoked idk *ned shrug*

_ Since Rhett McLaughlin was 6 years, 10 months, 24 days, 4 hours, and 9 minutes old, he had only ever wished for one thing: to see his best friend Charles “Link” Neal, his childhood companion and the person he cared most about the entire world, truly and blissfully happy. Thirty-five years, 6 months, 8 days, 10 hours, and 11 minutes, later, he finally experienced the fulfillment of this wish, and it was every bit as wondrous as he had imagined it would be. What he did not realize was that precisely four minutes and 31 seconds after, his best friend Link would be dead. _

_At least, for a little while._

“Help! Somebody HELP!!!”

Customers shrieking in abject terror was not something Ned was accustomed to — outside the restaurant during other escapades, maybe, but not in The Pie Hole. Well, except when they found that guy in the freezer. And when that other guy tried to kill him. OK, but it didn’t happen that often, and definitely not on a Sunday morning when the place was mostly empty. 

The scream startled Ned so much he dropped the top crust he was holding, and he steadied himself by slamming a hand down on the counter, causing the pile of blueberries there to return to the shriveled and moldy state of their original purchase. Scrubbing rotten berry goo off his hand and onto his apron, he rushed around the island as the sound of clattering plates and breaking glass echoed in the dining room. When he reached the source of the noise, what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

There were only two customers in the shop: two men, in their thirties or forties perhaps, seated at the big booth near the front window, the one he preferred because it fit his tall frame. Or rather, they had previously been seated there, for now they were both sprawled on the floor — one lying motionless on his back, the other kneeling over him, frantically pounding his chest. Nearby lay a shattered glass of milk and a broken plate upon which lay a partially-consumed piece of Chuck’s new peanut butter pie.

Chuck herself, who had also rushed from the kitchen before Ned could stop her, gasped in horror and cried out, “Oh my God! What happened?!”

_ What had happened was this: _

_ Charles Lincoln “Link” Neal, a fully grown adult but still the closest childhood companion of Rhett McLaughlin, had convinced his friend to join him on a tour of the best little-known small-town eating establishments as ranked by the publishers of Best Little-Known Small-Town Eating Establishments magazine. Always eager to see Link happy, and not averse to sampling some culinary treats himself, Rhett obliged. Together they had traveled for the past few weeks, sampling the delights of an eccentric assortment of local gastronomic landmarks, before stopping by the Pie Hole that morning for some peach cobbler, which Link had heard was the sweetest this side of his mama’s kitchen. But as he perused the menu Link noticed the pie of the day, the very name of which brought a joy to his face that made Rhett sit up in the (perfectly sized, for once) booth and take notice: Peanut Butter Bliss, a la mode upon request. Cobbler was forgotten, and Rhett watched in delight (a delight carefully concealed by decades of practice as well as an excellent slice of Spiced Apple) as Link was presented with a generous portion by a very chipper waitress with blonde hair and a slightly distracted expression. It was then Rhett noticed someone watching them from the archway leading into the kitchen: another young lady, this one with long brown hair and a very focused expression, focused at the moment on Link’s fork poised above his pie. _

“She came up with this one,” the waitress said. “Told me to make it a la mode on the house.”

“Well that was nice of her,” Link said. When he turned to wave his thanks to her, she abruptly retreated into the kitchen.

“She, uh, gets shy,” said the waitress. “Doesn’t go out much. Anyway, I’m Olive, just yell if you need anything.”

“Now why would I ever yell at you, Olive?” Rhett said, with just enough of a lingering Southern drawl to make Olive bite her lip and smooth her apron as she walked away. 

_ Rhett, pleased that he still had the knack, looked again toward the kitchen, but there was no sign of the mysterious pie recipe developer. He did notice someone else, though: a tall young man, almost as tall as himself, rolling out pie dough on the counter. Rhett took a moment to appreciate the view — he seldom encountered men his own size, let alone one as handsome as this one, with dark hair and round cheekbones like Link, and beautifully shaped lips like… well, like Link. He didn’t move like Link, though — even though he was rolling dough he kept his elbows pinned immobile against his sides, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, like he was trying to make himself smaller. Rhett was familiar with that tactic. But it was more than that — there was something overly tight and careful about his movements, almost neurotically so, as if he were somehow tied up with an invisible rope. But before Rhett could ponder the psychological implications inherent in the posture of the young pie-maker, his attention was refocused on his best friend Link, specifically by the noise of near-orgasmic ecstasy that emanated from him the moment the peanut butter pie touched his tongue. _

_ It was indeed the most delicious peanut butter pie Link Neal had ever tasted, and he had tasted many. For one single, lingering moment, he experienced a pure and undiluted bliss so intense that he feared he might need to hold a menu in front of himself when he went to the counter to pay. He opened his eyes to see Rhett watching him — such a good friend, Rhett, always had been, always would be. No one had ever known him as well as Rhett did. Years might come and go, and girlfriends with them, but Rhett would always be the best buddy a guy could ever ask for. Link shoved another enormous bite of pie into his mouth and, although he knew talking with one’s mouth full to be both impolite and rather disgusting, he could not contain his joy and drew in a breath to thank Rhett for bringing him to the Pie Hole. _

_ Unfortunately, what Link failed to realize was that the chewy bits near the delicious graham crust of Chuck’s Peanut Butter Bliss pie were not chocolate chips, but morsels of chocolate toffee — extremely chewy toffee which, if not properly softened, posed a risk of clumping together in the throat when swallowed by an overly enthusiastic peanut butter connoisseur and grateful best friend. Such a clump was at that very moment poised against the epiglottis of one Charles “Link” Neal, and when he drew in a breath to speak, it became lodged in his trachea and, four minutes and 31 seconds later, he was dead. _

Chuck and Olive, who had also rushed over from the counter, knelt on the floor beside the panic-stricken customer and his unresponsive friend.

“What’s wrong?” Chuck cried. “Is it his heart?”

“He’s too young for that,” said Olive. “Statistically it’s more likely to be an aneurysm.”

“Myocardial infarctions can occur at any age. I saw it once on the news, this guy just—”

“He’s choking!!” The man shouted, his bearded face flushed crimson in panic.

“Oh, well that does make more sense,” Olive said.

“Do you know the Heimlich?” said Chuck.

“I tried that, it didn’t work, I hit him on the back, I did everything, please, you have to help!”

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Olive offered, and scurried into the kitchen. 

Chuck gripped the frantic man’s arm. “What’s your name?” 

“Rhett.”

“OK, Rhett, I’m Chuck, this is Ned, we’re gonna help your friend, alright? It’s gonna be OK.”

She leaned over and listened for breath, then, finding none, hiked up her skirt to straddle the unconscious man and begin CPR. Before she could move, however, Rhett noticed Ned standing there and called out to him. 

“You’re the owner, right? You gotta know what to do!”

Ned stammered. “Me? No, I mean yes, I’m the owner, but all I know is the Heimlich, I mean it’s not like there’s a mandatory class for pie-makers or—”

“Don’t you have a knife, can’t you do one of those trache-ectomy things?”

Chuck gasped. “Oh! I can do that! I took a correspondence first-aid course. I just need a scalpel.”

Ned fished out the emergency paring knife he kept in his apron for trimming off stray crust fragments. “Will this work?”

Chuck nodded, and Ned came over to kneel down next to them. He chose to crouch on the other side of Rhett and slide the knife across the floor to the girl (did she say her name was Chuck??), which Rhett would have found somewhat odd if he had not been so utterly overwhelmed by terror. He leaned over and ripped the neck of Link’s t-shirt open to give her better access; as she examined the paring knife’s blade in the sunlight her hands began to shake, but she steeled herself and repeated under her breath, “I can do this. I can do this.”

Ned, meanwhile, was looking at the unconscious man. “No you can’t.”

“Yes I can, Ned, I passed that course with flying colors, I can—”

“I mean you can’t do it now. Or you can, but it won’t do any good.” His brow furrowed as he looked down at the gray face, a quite handsome face with a trace of salt-and-pepper stubble, lips that would have been lovely if they weren’t such a disturbing shade of purple, and thick black eyelashes behind quirky hipster glasses. Ned wondered what color those eyes might be, but he would never know now.

“He’s dead.”

“What?” Chuck leaned over to feel for a pulse, then gasped. “Oh my God, he’s dead!”

“No, you’re wrong,” cried Rhett. “The ambulance’ll come and they’ll fix him, they’ll save him, he’s not dead he’s not dead—” He turned to the inert body and seized it by the shoulders. “Link! Wake up, you hear me? Link! LINK!” 

“I’m so sorry,” Chuck said, tears in her eyes. “Ned is right. He’s gone.”

“You shut up, shut up, he’s not, he can’t be—” Rhett scooted back until he was huddled against the side of the booth and drew his knees up to his chest. He was taller than Ned by at least an inch but he suddenly looked very small, as if part of himself had just evaporated. His hair, which had been combed into a silly but somehow flattering pompadour, drooped low over his forehead, and his eyes began to glaze over as he clasped his knees to his chest. Ned was fascinated by those eyes: large and round, the most peculiar shade of greenish-gray, in other circumstances they would have been devastatingly beautiful, but right now they were merely devastating.

“He can’t,” Rhett whispered, over and over. “He can’t go. He can’t go. He can’t. He’s all I have.”

Chuck looked up at Ned, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Ned began shaking his head in a firm negative, and when that didn’t work, he made several chopping motions across his neck until he realized how insensitive that was and stuck his hand back in his pocket. Then Chuck began to cry in earnest, and that drew him down to crouch beside her, though he crossed his arms and stuffed his hands into his armpits to prevent any stray gestures of comfort.

“Ned, please,” she whispered.

“Chuck, no. I can’t. I can’t!”

“But this is my fault! That was my pie!”

“And I told you not to put so much toffee in it, but that’s neither here nor there at this point is it? Even if I hadn’t sworn never to do what you’re asking me to do, have you forgotten about the random proximity part? There’s only three other people in this room, and two of them are immune. You want me to bring this guy’s best friend back for one minute just so he can drop dead the next?”

“There has to be something you can do!” Suddenly she brightened. “I know, what if you did it when the paramedics get here? Then they start working on him and they save him again, kind of, and random proximity would no longer apply, right?”

“Chuck, please, I’m sorry, but I can’t—”

_ It was at that precise moment that Olive returned from the kitchen to confirm the ambulance was on its way. In her haste, distraught both by the tragedy of the first ever choking death at the Pie Hole and the even more tragic attractiveness of its victim, her steps unsteady from the adrenaline coursing through her body along with the remnants of a distracting Southern accent, she stumbled over the bottom rung of a bar stool and grabbed the counter top for balance. Unfortunately she had been wrapping silverware before all of this began, and her palm landed squarely on the upturned tines of a fork. With a yelp she jerked her hand back and sent a dozen more forks raining onto the floor in a tremendous clatter. Ned whirled, and while attempting to maintain his awkward pose of hands-stuffed-in-armpits, he lost his balanced and pitched over backwards. Chuck leaped out of the way just in time, while Ned simultaneously twisted away from her and flailed to break his fall. His hand, slick with remnants of blueberry goo, slipped on the linoleum and he fell sprawling to his belly on top of the body, his forearm landing directly onto the exposed upper chest of Charles “Link” Neal, recently deceased. _

The dead man sat bolt upright, his mouth forming two words before his revived throat expelled the offending ball of toffee in an explosive cough that became the end of his exclamation.

“—crap?!”

“Link!” Rhett seized him in a fierce and frantic hug, clutching him as if he feared he might drop dead again at any moment. (At this point, the actual number of moments would have been 58.3 seconds.) “Link, you’re alright! I thought—”

“Oh my gosh,” cried Chuck, “It’s a miracle! He must have been breathing after all!”

Ned picked himself up from the floor, glaring at her. “I don’t know, sometimes these things have after-effects, you shouldn’t—”

“I’m OK, Rhett! I’m fine. I thought I was a goner, but… then I woke up. Did you whack me like your mama did that time you got a Junior Mint stuck in your throat?”

Rhett was too overcome to reply. He held onto the embrace a moment longer, and then suddenly seemed to become aware of himself and pulled away. He dragged his knuckles over his eyes and forced a smile. “I tried, but I think it was this guy who did it.”

“He must have known just the right spot to hit,” Chuck beamed.

Link turned to Ned. “Wow, man, I don’t know what to say. Thank you—”

He reached out to grasp Ned’s arm in gratitude. Chuck flinched, but Link’s hand only touched the rolled-up fabric of Ned’s sleeve before Ned tensed and drew away by instinct.

“Sorry. I kinda have a thing about touching people.”

“Well I’m glad you touched me, that’s all I can say,” Link smiled.

“Same here,” Chuck said, grinning.

Ned glanced down at his watch: 35 seconds. He looked at Chuck in rising alarm.

“Chuck, I have to.”

“No—”

“Have to what?” said Link.

“It’ll be Rhett—” Ned blurted.

“It’ll be Rhett what?” said Rhett.

“Ned—” said Chuck.

“Chuck—” said Ned.

“Rhett?” said Link.

“Link?” said Rhett.

“Police!” someone shouted.

They all turned to the window, where the view of the store across the street was obscured by at least three squad cars. Officers stood behind each, guns pointed at the store’s entrance.

“What’s going on?” said Chuck.

_ What was going on was this. One Newton Merriweather, recently escaped Death Row inmate, had chosen that particular morning to fund his flight to freedom with some light armed robbery, until the store in question sounded the alarm, at which point the armed robbery evolved into a bona fide hostage situation. In all the commotion of sudden death and even more sudden resurrection, none of the occupants of the Pie Hole had noticed the police cars gathering across the street. Now they all rose to their feet and stared out the window as officers created a perimeter to prevent the perpetrator’s escape. One of them had a megaphone, into which he now instructed the villain within to come out with his hands up. The doors opened and a rather disheveled man appeared, carrying a bag of cash and dragging a small girl with him. In his other hand was a gun. _

“Lemme outta here or I’ll waste this kid!”

“Step away from the child,” said megaphone cop. “Drop your weapon and surrender or we will shoot.”

“I already killed three people, you think I care about one more? You’ll never take me alive, you hear me? Never!”

“Fire on my signal,” said megaphone cop. “Three… two…”

_ The triple murderer raised his weapon to make it a quadruple, and then he continued raising it as his arms flailed out and he pitched over sideways onto the pavement, dead as a stone. The little girl prodded him with one foot, then turned and ran back into the store. The assembled cops looked at each other, understandably confused by this turn of events, though not necessarily disappointed by it. _

“One,” said Ned.

“Well… he was right,” said Chuck. 

_ Some time later, after all the respective police officers, paramedics, and journalists had had their fill of interviews and dispersed from the scene, Ned closed the Pie Hole for the rest of the day and began preparing a picnic box for Rhett and Link to take with them on their travels. Emerson arrived after seeing the standoff on the news, and Olive filled him in on the equally distressing event that occurred inside the shop (one with an equally satisfying conclusion, if significantly less paperwork). Link helped Chuck and Olive clean up the booth he had inadvertently strewn with debris, despite Chuck’s insistence that he owed them nothing; Link, he declared, felt that he did indeed owe them something, namely his life. Emerson offered to finish off the offending pie, but Chuck was adamantly against that idea, having no desire to push her luck; however, she did give him a peach cobbler cup-pie on the house, and she offered to make another Peanut Butter Bliss for Link to take with him, 100% free of toffee or any other solids. She entered the kitchen to prepare it and found Ned there working on the picnic box, his face even twitchier and more flushed than usual. For a moment she watched him obsessively cutting the crust off two sandwiches filled with suspiciously fresh-looking watercress, and then she tried to cheer him up. _

“See? It all worked out.”

“Yeah well, lucky for us this neighborhood has been going to hell lately.” Ned chopped a few more crusts, then put the knife down and leaned against the counter. “Look I’m sorry, but this was not a good day for me, okay? I mean yeah, Link not dying was good, but the rest of it not so much. And it could have been much, much worse.”

“But it wasn’t.” That got no response, so she picked up his plastic Digby scratcher and used it to poke him in the shoulder. When he looked up, she turned the hand over and squeezed the trigger to make the finger open and close. “Come here.”

He sighed and followed her to the doorway. Looking through it they could see Rhett, Link, Olive, and Emerson sitting together in the booth, Olive and Emerson on one side, Rhett and Link on the other. Rhett had his arm around the back of the booth, not touching Link’s shoulders, but forming a perimeter around him, as if guarding him from any further harm.

“Look at them,” Chuck said softly. “Whatever you and I feel for each other, whatever this thing is we have, as weird and frustrating and complex as it is — they have it too. You and me, we got a second chance. And now so do they.”

Ned looked down at her, and as always, he could not help but smile. 

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” he said. 

“I’m not the one making them a picnic basket,” Chuck replied.

When everything was ready, Chuck and Ned walked Rhett and Link outside to say goodbye. Link almost tried again to shake Ned’s hand, then remembered his former reluctance and gave him a knowing nod instead, from one idiosyncratic to another. 

“Is there anything perishable in there?” he asked, gesturing to the basket.

“Just Chuck’s pie. Oh, and some watercress but I, uh, think that will last.” 

“Well, I’ll put it in the cooler anyway just to be on the safe side. Car’s around the corner, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Chuck said. She took Link’s arm as they strolled around the corner, and turned at the last second to give Ned a meaningful look. He responded with the neck-chopping motion, then realized Rhett was watching him and tried to turn it into an awkward cough.

“So…” Rhett began, then trailed off. He put his hands in his pockets and looked down, his shoulders hunched in a way Ned found intimately familiar. 

“Drive safe,” he said, to spare them both the agony of gratitude. “Send us a postcard when you get back to L.A.”

Rhett grinned. “We got a ways to go yet on this trip. Link won’t let something like this stop him.”

“Chuck would be the same way.”

“Yeah, she seems— is Chuck really her name?”

“Charlotte.”

“Chuck seems like kind of a weird nickname, is all.”

“Your friend’s name is Link.”

“Point taken.” 

Rhett withdrew one hand long enough to scratch his beard, then ran it through his lopsided hair and shoved it back in its pocket. Such gorgeous wavy hair, Ned thought. Chuck’s aunt Lily was right, God did always waste the best hair on men. And now that Rhett was grinning at him, his face free of tears and horror, those pretty eyes lit by the afternoon sun, Ned could see how handsome he really was.

“Rhett, can I tell you something? It’s… about Link.”

“What about Link?”

“Well… you see… I, uh…” Ned cleared his throat. “OK, so, Chuck and I, we, um...”

Rhett raised an eyebrow. “Are you about to ask us to swing?”

“What? Swing what?”

“Nothing,” Rhett blurted. “L.A. thing, forget I said it, please continue.”

“OK, so, the thing is, I like Chuck, a lot, and she likes me, but there’s always been this… obstacle in our… relationship, and for a long time I thought it meant we could never be together.”

“Why not? I see how you look at her. I mean, you love her, don’t you?”

“No- I mean yes, of course I— I very much— what you said—” Ned coughed and then shoved his hands beneath his armpits, “But the thing is that I… I have to keep my distance. From her. Physically.”

“You mean you can’t…?”

“I can’t even kiss her.”

“Not ever?”

“No. Well, not until I can find plastic wrap with better tensile strength.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Look, all I’m saying is that it’s complicated, alright? L— that thing you said, it’s complicated.”

“Yeah.” Rhett stared at the ground, and out of nowhere he suddenly began to blink in that way that meant he was holding back tears. Ned was quite familiar with the technique, and the sympathy it aroused caught him so off guard, he found himself being honest.

“My point is, I thought there was no way I could be with her. I thought it was impossible, that it would never work. But the truth is I lost her once, and I got her back, and I realized not everyone gets that kind of do-over. But we did, and that’s got to mean something, right? We got a second chance. …And so did you.”

Rhett looked at him, those big eyes still blinking back tears, but this time not the bad kind. Somehow it made them prettier than ever. He stared at Ned for a minute, then smiled until his cheeks perked up like two newly-resurrected strawberries. 

“I’m not gonna lie, I had the same thought.” 

Ned smiled at him. “It’s a good thought. Don’t let it get away.”

Rhett smiled back, cheeks pinker than ever, until Ned found himself scuffing his toe on the pavement and blushing for some bewildering reason. They stood there on the sidewalk looking at each other, long legs crossed, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, wavy hair wafting in the breeze. And then quietly, with that loveliest remnant of a Southern drawl: 

“You know, I’m not used to looking at someone eye to eye.”

“Me neither.”

“It’s kind of nice.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Especially eyes as nice as yours.”

Ned’s jaw dropped, but before he could answer Rhett had leaned over and kissed him. 

He closed his eyes — a soft, warm kiss, not too dry, not too wet, completely free of cellophane, not the set of lips he usually contemplated but doing a pretty damn good job all on their own. His instinct was to pull away but to his surprise he leaned in, and when Rhett’s arms slid around his waist, he didn’t pull his own hands from their armpit prison but he didn’t twist away either. For one fleeting moment, he let himself be held.

From Rhett’s point of view the kiss was just as sweet, both on its own merits and as a contemplation of possible future kisses with someone a few inches shorter but no less beautiful. Ned was stiff as a board in his arms, and not in the fun way, and Rhett briefly wondered if this is what he would feel like when Link kissed him, but then he recalled the no-touching thing and forgave the pie-maker his understandable quirks. Chuck was a lucky woman, and as Ned softened just a tiny bit in his arms, Rhett realized he was a lucky man as well.

When Rhett drew back, Ned was staring at him open-mouthed, a little moisture on those cupid’s bow lips and his thick black eyebrows scrunched into an upside-down V devastatingly close to the way Link’s did. 

“That was from her,” Rhett said.

“Oh,” said Ned.

Rhett grinned. “And from me too.”

Ned smiled. “Oh.”

A few moments later Chuck and Link returned from the car, to find Ned and Rhett smiling at each other on the sidewalk. Chuck came to stand next to Ned, Link next to Rhett, and they all waved at each other in lieu of hugs or handshakes. And then Rhett and Link turned to go, and Chuck and Ned returned to the Pie Hole. 

Back in the quiet kitchen, Chuck said, “How did it go?”

Ned put his hands in his pockets. “I think he got the hint.”

She plucked an oven mitt off the counter and slipped it onto her hand, then reached down and clasped Ned’s fingers in its insulated grip. 

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” she said.

The pie-maker looked down at their entwined hands and smiled.

Around the corner, as Rhett prepared to start the car, Link asked him: “So what were you two talking about while we were gone?”

“Second chances,” Rhett said.

“Ooh, that sounds deep. What did he have to say about them?”

Rhett put on his sunglasses and smiled. “I’ll tell you when we have our picnic,” he said, and turned the key.


End file.
